Xuan's eyes were as deep as ancient wells, unable to make any waves.
He took the scroll and gently twisted it with his fingertips. The tough papyrus trembled slightly under his fingers, as if he was afraid of the owner's power.
His eyes didn't stay on those abnormal data for more than a second before he understood everything.
"It's those old guys from Hidden Sand Village." His voice was very soft, but it had a metallic texture, reverberating in the empty hall. "They think that cutting off a few trade routes will shake the foundation of the New Hall I just built? Ridiculous."
Chiyo frowned. As the internal affairs manager of the New Hall, she prefers stability and order, "Their purpose is very clear. By using this underground trade route, they can not only line their own pockets, but also create economic islands and weaken our control at the border. I suggest that elite troops be dispatched immediately to remove all their strongholds in the desert and scare Xiaoxiao with the force of thunder."
"Thunder?" Xuan let out a chuckle. There was no joy in the laughter, only a solemn feeling overlooking the chess game. "Thunder can only split the stubborn rocks, but it cannot sweep away the quicksand. If you destroy their road now, they will dig out a new one under another sand dune tomorrow. Treating the symptoms but not the root cause."
He turned around and walked towards the huge sand table in the center of the hall, on which the terrain of Land of Wind was meticulously reproduced.
His fingers crossed the border and finally stopped in a vast no-man's land leading to Fire Country.
"Want to starve me to death? Then let's see who knows the taste of hunger better."
The corners of Xuan's mouth curved into a cold arc.
He took out a small leather bag from his arms and poured a few grains of gray-brown sand into the palm of his hand.
The grains of sand looked ordinary, just like the billions of gravels in the desert.
"Chiyo, pass my order." His voice regained its calmness, but it carried an unquestionable majesty. "There is no need to stop them and let them go. You can even acquiesce to some border merchants to join in and make the scene more lively."
"Then, find a way to mix this 'sand' into every batch of goods shipped to Fire Country. Whether it is grain, cloth or ore, make sure every truck has a little bit of it."
"This is..." Chiyo looked at those grains of sand and vaguely felt a familiar chakra fluctuation.
"An alchemical product I specially developed in my early years to cope with the water blockade war." Xuan put the sand away again. "It is non-toxic and odorless, and is insoluble in oil, but it expands rapidly a hundred times when exposed to water, and releases a viscous colloid that is enough to block any sophisticated water purification device. Back then, I used it to paralyze an enemy camp of 3,000 people, and made them mourn for three days and three nights while guarding a lake of stagnant water."
Chiyo felt a chill instantly rise up his back.
She finally understood Xuan's intention.
This is no longer a simple economic counterattack, but a silent and slowly spreading social disaster.
What he wants is not to destroy a trade route, but to make everyone related to this trade route pay a heavy price from the source.
A month later, Fire Country, multiple remote villages and towns far away from the political center experienced large-scale water source failures almost at the same time.
What flows out of the water purifiers in every household is no longer clear spring, but turbid mud.
The public water purification towers in villages and towns were completely paralyzed. Hard agglomerates burst the filter pipes, and the expensive equipment turned into a pile of scrap metal.
At first, everyone thought it was a rare natural disaster or aging equipment.
Until a perceptive ninja was repairing the purification tower and detected an extremely weak but extremely unique chakra mark from the gelatin that blocked the pipes.
After layers of tracing, all the clues finally pointed to the smuggling trade route across the desert.
The truth is revealed and public resentment boils over instantly!
They don't care who is behind the scenes, they only know that it is those profit-seeking "middlemen", those smugglers, who brought this damn "Poison Sand" into their homes in order to evade Land of Wind taxes.
The angry people turned into thugs, and bloody attacks against caravans broke out in many places. The smuggling profits that were once envied by others turned into a life-threatening charm overnight.
In the chaotic desert, a man named Baba, relying on his weathered face and skillful camel driving skills, successfully infiltrated a large-scale smuggling gang.
He pretended to be a troubled businessman whose family was ruined, and quickly won the trust of the leader with his generous drinking capacity and several "just right" acts of righteousness.
While handing over goods in a hidden oasis, Baba drank with the leader of another caravan, pretended to be drunk, and "inadvertently" revealed a "shattering secret" while talking nonsense - Land of Wind New Hall has locked their position. Within three days, a cavalry regiment composed of three thousand Scarlet Eye Tax officials will come to wipe out the entire smuggling network and kill them without mercy!
Panic spread like a plague among the fragile smuggling alliance at an unimaginable speed.
The original tacit agreement to ship goods in batches disappeared. Everyone wanted to get rid of the goods in their hands before the "army pressed on the border", exchange them for real money and silver, and then fly away.
Just one day later, more than a dozen smuggling teams and more than 500 sand camels, like a herd of frightened animals, flocked to the only large transit oasis in the desert.
Narrow passages, limited water sources, tense nerves, and a small friction can instantly detonate the backlog of conflicts.
In order to fight for the road, for water, or even for a quarrel, the lights of swords and swords suddenly lit up, and the bloody fire began.
Just when the oasis was in chaos, Baba, mixed in the crowd, quietly activated Explosive Tag, which had been buried in the cargo pile.
Boom--!
The deafening explosion tore through the tranquility of the desert, and the sky-high Kakkō illuminated the entire oasis like daylight.
More than 300 trucks of goods about to be transported to Fire Country, together with dozens of smugglers who were fighting around them, were instantly swallowed up by flames.
While everyone was stunned by the explosion, Baba walked through the chaos like a ghost, with a cold light flashing from the short knife in his hand, and accurately cut off the heads of the three largest smuggling gang leaders.
After doing all this, he didn't stop at all, and disappeared into the vast night with three heads that were still dripping blood.
Three days later, in front of the rebuilt New Hall tax hall, three heads were hung high on the flagpole. Their dried blood and horrified expressions showed their endings to everyone passing by.
Next to it, on a newly erected stone tablet, there was a line of large characters engraved in blood-like cinnabar. "This is the end of tax evaders."
At the same time, Xuan's second order spread throughout Land of Wind: From now on, New Hall will implement the "First Reporter Reward System" - whoever reports smuggling with their real name, once verified, the reporter will receive 30% of the value of all seized stolen goods as a reward!
Thirty percent!
This number is enough to drive anyone in the know crazy.
Overnight, the once indestructible underground network, bound by "loyalty" and "secret", began to devour itself crazily.
Yesterday's brothers became today's bargaining chips to receive rewards; long-term partners suddenly became evil spirits who stabbed each other in the back.
Countless informants emerged from the shadows like ants, submitting smuggling route maps and lists of hiding places to tax offices in various places.
The underground trade routes completely collapsed.
Xuan stood at the highest point of the New Hall, overlooking the people coming and going in the square below. The rebuilt tax hall had begun to take shape, and order was being re-established in a tough and efficient way.
Chiyo appeared quietly behind him, with a hint of sincere awe in his voice. "Master Xuan, there is news from Fire Country that seven villages that once relied on smuggled materials have proactively sent people to contact us and applied to be merged into our Scarlet Eye Tax District. They are willing to accept our management and tax rate."
Xuan's eyes did not move away from the rolling yellow sand in the distance, and he just said lightly, "They think I am collecting taxes... actually I am screening people."
The wind picked up the corners of his broad clothes, and as his sleeves and robes fluttered, a corner of a secret sheepskin map that had never been disclosed to anyone quietly slipped away.
It was a general map of trade routes covering Five Great Nations, with shocking red lines outlining every major commercial artery.
And at every crucial hub node, two words are marked in smaller handwriting: "Tax threshold" and "collapse critical point."
At the top of the map, a line of small characters shone coldly under the afterglow of the setting sun. "Those who wait for a price will eventually be worthless."
Chiyo looked at that picture, and his heart was shocked.
She suddenly understood that in Xuan's eyes, the so-called smuggling network and the so-called economic blockade were just appetizers for him to test the reaction of every chess piece on this huge chessboard.
Those who quickly defected were screened out by him; those who were still waiting and watching were also noted by him.
A stronger wind blew from the depths of the desert, bringing with it heat and chill.
Chiyo noticed that in the map area to the south of Land of Wind, there were several villages marked with colors that were completely different from those villages that had surrendered, making them appear particularly isolated and eye-catching.
They seemed to be waiting for something.